The clarion. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1883-1888, 1887-10-26
1t with a smile. Some Of you have

pleasant memories c0uuecteu Win L0e
evening star, or the moon in its first
quarter, on with the sunrise, because you
saw it just as you were arriving at har-
Dor after ternpestuous voyage Forever
and forever, o nearer, associate the SUM-
set with your magnanimous, out and
out unlimited remuneration of all hatreds
and forgiveness Of all foes. 1 admit it Is
the most difficult of all graces to prac-
tice, and at the start you may make a
complete failure, but keep on in the at
tempt to practice it. Shakespeare wrote
ten plays before he reached Hamlet, and
seventeen plays before he reached Mer-
chant Of Venice, and twenty eight plays
before he reached Macbeth. And gradu-
ally you will come from the easier graces
to the most difficult. Beside that, it IS
not matter of personal determination
so much as the laying hold of the al
mighty arm of God, who viii help us to
do anything we ought TO do. Remember
that in all personal controversies the one
least to blame will have TO take the first
step at pacifcation, if it is ever
effective. The contest between Aschines
and Aristippus resounds through history,
but Aristippus, who was least to blame,
went TO Hschines and said: shall we
not agree to be friends before we make
ourselves the laughing stock of the
whole country" And Aschines said:
Thou art far better man than I, for l
began the quarrel. but thou hast been
the first in healing the BREACH" and
they were always friends afterward.
So let the one of you that is least to
blame take the first step toward concih-
alton. The one most in the wrong will
never take it. Oh, it makes one feel
splendidly to be able to practice unlim-
tied forgiveness. It improves ones
body and soul 1t will make you
measure three or four more inches
around the chest and improve your
respiration so that you can take deeper
and longer breath. 1t improves the
countenance by scattering the gloom
and Frightening the forehead and loosen
ing the pinched look about the nostril and
lip, and makes you like God himself.
He is OInnIpotence, and we cannot copy
that. He is independent of all the uni
verse, and we cannot copy that. He is
omnipresent, and we cannot copy that.
But he forgives with a broad sweep all
faults, and all neglects, and all insults,
and all wrong doing, and in that way
we may copy him with mighty succe IS.
Go harness that sublime action of your
soul to an autumnal sunset, the hour
when the gate of heaven opens to let the
day pass into the eternitles and some
of the glOries escape this way through
the brief opening. We talk about
the Italian sunsets, and sunset amid the
Apprentices, and sunset amid the Cordille-
ras. But | will tell you how you may
see grander sunset than any mere lover
of nature ever beheld; that is by finging
into it all your hatreds and animosities,
and let the horses of fire trample them.
and the chariots stab them, and the beach
of fire consume them, and the pillows of
fire overwhelm them. The sublimest
thing you can do is forgiveness. Along
the glowing banks of this coming even
tide let the divine and the human be con-
current.
Again: We should not let the sun go
down on our wrath, because it is of little
importance what the world says of you
or does to you when you have the affiu-
ent God of the sunset as your provider
and defender. People talk as though it
were fixed spectacle of nature and al
two sunsets alike and if the world has
existed 6 900 years there have been about
2,190, 600 sunsets, each of them as dis
tinct from all the other pictures in the
gallery of the sky as Titian's Last Sup
per, f" Rubens' Descent from the Cross, "
Raphael's TRANSPORTATION, - and Michael
Angeles ''Last Judgment" distinct
from each other. If that God of
such infinite resources that he can put
on the wall of the sky each night more
than the Louvre, and the Luxembourg,
and the Vatican, and the Dresden and
Venetian galleries all in one, is my God
and your God, our provider and protec-
tor, what is the use of our worrying
about any human antagonism? If we
are misinterpreted, the God of the many
colored sunset can put the right color on
our action. If he can afford to hang
such masterpieces over the outside wall
of heaven and have them obliterated in
an hour, he must be very rich in re-
sources and can put us through in safety.
If all the garniture of the western hea-
vens at eventide is but the upholstery of
one of the windows of our future home,
what small business for US to be
chasing enemies! Let not this Sabbath
sun go down upon your wrath.
Mahomet said: "The sword is the KEY
of heaven and hell, drop of blood shed
is better than fasting, and wounds in the
day of judgment respondent as vermil-
ion, and odoriferous as musk" But,
my hearers, in the last day we will find
just the opposite of that to be true, and
that the sword never unlocks heaven,
and that he who heals wounds is greater
than he who makes them, and that on
the same ring are two keys: Gods for
giveness of us and our forgiveness of
enemies, and these two keys unlock
Paradise.
And now / wish for all of you beau
tiful sunset in your earthly existence.
With some of you it has been long day
of trouble, and with others of you it will
be far from calm. When the sun rose at
6 o'clock it was the morning of youth,
and a fair day was prophesied, but by
the time the noon day of midlife had
come and the clock of your earthly ex-
istence had struck -, cloud racks gath
cred and tempest beloved in the track
of tempest. But as the evening of old
age approaches pray God the skies may
brighten and the clouds be piled up into
pillars as of celestial temples to which you
go, or move as with mounted cohorts
come to take you home. And as yon
sink out of sight below the horizon may
there be radiance of Christian example
lingering long after you are gone,
and on the heavens be written. in letters
of sapphire, and on the waters
in letters of opal, and on the hills in let
tiers of emerald: Thy sun shall no more
go down, neither shall thy moon with
draw itself, for the Lord shall be thine
everlasting light and the days of thy
mourning shall be ended So shall the
sunset of earth become the sunrise of
heaven